IA/VT -COLORFUL-

I was pretty hyped for IA/VT Colorful as evidenced by the fact that I bought it only 8 months after release. As a cheapo gamer, I try to wait for the "Best" garbage edition before I buy the OG cover that's actually resellable. That puke yellow shit is practically unsellable on eBay. (#GamerTips)

Ah, the old "fuck you, buy the original release ya cheapskate!" edition.

Given that I only know of two other non-Miku Vocaloid console rhythm games: the GUMI-defiling atrocity Megpoid and Project 575, I was looking forward to this as one of the few alternatives from Sega's grip on the micro-genre (my own pro game journalist term for "niche" like "micro-celebrities" minus the dick pics). On the other hand, I also wanted to save this one for a rainy day so I only played a bit here and there. Fast forward a full 3 years after buying the game, I decided it was fine time to wrap it up.

So stupid! I'll never be PRO game journalist if I keep finishing my games!!

First off, the major big benefit of playing the one and only rhythm game based on IA Vocaloid is that all the songs are totally new with nothing recycling from previous games (there aren't any duh). I have to give major props to the nice selection of songs included within the game (gasp!) and the professional quality unlike the ParaPhray amateurs with Megpoid. As the title implies, the UI and gameplay are very colorful and pleasant to the eyes.

Of course there's DLC. 300 yen per song with no set discount?! Pfft, skip.

The songs and PVs are all good, including some really musically interesting (aka weird) tracks such as Chiri Chiri Juso. I really liked the songs by out of survice and Party Party was also pretty catchy just to highlight a few. All in all, the tracks were solid and I have to say some of the animation on a couple of PVs were outstanding.

Good shit, I watched this in PV mode at least 3 times

However, one minor downside is that this game was not as fun as the Diva games in terms of playing around with costumes and accessories. First of all, only a smaller selection of songs support costumes (no accessories) and it just wasn't as fun to play dress up. Also, there are no mini games or having to spend hours to get a stupid goddamn cuckoo clock. That's a good thing if you didn't get my drift. In fact, I'm not even sure why you have to go to the items menu to "get" your costumes after they unlock because you don't need any sorts of points to get em.

No Diva points to grind here and most importantly no fucking patty cake.

In terms of the gameplay, I found that the difficulty was very fair. The double presses are always parallel eg up+triangle, left+square so the platinum is very doable for those comfortable with the genre. The only tricky parts are some of step up plays on hard mode. The random mode is the only way you get double key press that don't match and that can get quite confusing. I was not able to finish all the steps because of the 10 star difficulty with hidden notes on STEP 21. I might be able to do it with a lot of practice but it's not required for the platinum so I didn't feel like it.

DJMax veterens be like, "Is this a joke?"

Score: 3.5 now, can somebody PLEASE make a decent GUMI game?? out of 5 (37 hours for platinum)

Add another solid title for the Vita as one of if not the best handheld console for rhythm games. I thoroughly enjoyed this little "hidden gem" from Marvelous. Now, Diva F 2nd is totally a better game in many ways but since it has all those songs from the PSP titles, I gave this one the same score for being totally fresh. I don't know a lot of IA songs but I can see myself becoming a fan. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any sort of sequel in the works but one can hope.

As an aside, this game is rated Cero C with a needle icon likely due to just one song. Boy, those Japanese sure are sensitive about drugs. Oh I know! Let's rip IA from all media works as punishment! (RIP Judge Eyes Pierre)

Another favorite track of mine though it has drugs. #Boycott!

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Negima!? Chou Mahora Taisen Kattoiin☆Keiyaku Shikkou Dechai masuu（ネギま!? 超 麻帆良大戦 かっとイ~ン☆契約執行でちゃいますぅ）

Among a looooong list of Negima!? games, ネギま!? 超 麻帆良大戦 かっとイ~ン☆契約執行でちゃいますぅ I believe is the first of the two Negima!? games on the Nintendo DS and based on the reviews, I probably should have skipped this one and gone straight to ネギま!?超麻帆良大戦チュウ チェックイ~ン 全員集合!やっぱり温泉来ちゃいましたぁ. Don't worry, I won't look at you with Jhipster disdain for not remembering the exact difference between the two titles.

Oh I'm sorry, were you expecting Romaji with that?

But yeah, this game doesn't exactly exude quality as it opens with the shittiest looking title screen and a heavily compressed reading of the title a la "kattoi~~~~n!!". Ugh. Now, I'm obviously not one of those IGN "pro" contract reviewers who are randomly assigned shit and paid some sum to pump out a review of something they have absolutely no clue about as quickly as possible. So yes, I watched the anime adaptation (all 26 episodes) and read some of the manga. I even tried to watch the remake though I stopped because well, it's the same shit mostly. And yes, for the record, Yue is my fav girl followed closely by Nodoka cause you know, those shy types are the most wild in the bedroom. The main heroine is the most boring and stereotypical archetype evar so fuck that girl, whatever her name was.

My future waifu. Unfortunately, this is NOT from the game.

So yeah, even though this game is a mess, combining an ADV part, Negima trivial questions err... I mean trivia, and a shitty SRPG, I probably would have finished it nevertheless. I didn't even mind resetting constantly to find out which girls would give you new costumes in the ADV part nor the quizzes with random difficulty ranging from the easiest, "which girl is [name]" to some super niche Negima trivia. BUT what I couldn't stand are SRPGs that only reward exp to the character that defeats an enemy AND no practice stage to grind. There's no way in HELL I would diligently plan for which characters to level up by saving kills for a game of this caliber.

Not to mention, the difficulty is way too high for a game of such shitty quality. If you lose a battle, there's no way to keep your experience. Basically, a big fuck you and back you go to the shitty "kattoi~~~~n!!" title screen. Oh, we took away all the characters that you leveled up from previous fights? Ha, why don't you start over, you sorry fuck?!

No, fuck you game. You're going straight into dumpster. There goes 8 hours of my life, down the tubes. Also, my copy of the game was super shitty so who knows if the Gamestop dumpster divers would even bother with your ass.

Score: orz I just needed a kiss from Yue to keep going but alas it was not to be out of 5

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

orz - Failed to finish (not rated)

Senran Kagura Burst: Guren no Shoujotachi（閃乱カグラ Burst -紅蓮の少女達-）

Senran Kagura Burst is an expansion of the first Senran Kagura game that includes both games. I didn't know this at the time so I ended up buying both copies. But you know what? The first game came out in the glory days when publishers included REAL manuals instead of the single page foldout contained in the "enhanced" upgrade. So I'm going to keep it in my closed, sealed off collection of boxes cause it's "collectible".

3DS manual, they sure don't make'em like they used to (or at all really T_T)

The first game has the characters from the "good" Hanzo Gakuen ninja school, while Burst added the option of playing as the characters from the "evil" ninja school: Hebi Joshi Gakuen. You can either view this as a very nice package that essentially doubles the content or a necessary upgrade to a game originally woefully lacking in content. (Hey, at least it comes with a full manual, remember?)

I expected the expanded scenario to take place after the events of the first game. Instead, it covers the same timeline of the first game except from the viewpoint of the other side. What was interesting was the fact that it doesn't try to stay consistent to the events of the first game. It kinda reminded me of a game version of Rashomon. Oh right, gamer philistines. Um, Rashomon is a classic Japanese film where multiple people witnessed the same event yet all have completely different stories of what transpired. I don't know if this ninja story has some sort of deeper theme like the movie (um, probably NOT) but I did think it was a bit odd.

FORTY THREE PAGES, sigh those were the good ol' days

Anyways, who cares about the story, it's all about the boobs, right?!! Well, let's talk about boobs, shall we? While I wouldn't call myself a boobie sommelier, I'm far past the immature, juvenile stage of "the bigger the better" mentality. I have a far richer variety of tastes in terms of sizes and more importantly, boob shapes. Unfortunately, almost all the boobs in this game are the same, round, American porn silicone shape except for Mirai. While I've never seen a girl's boobs in real life, at this point, I have very high standards for digital melons and while it's commendable to put boobs on Nintendo's sacred platform, it hasn't held up to the test of time.

Mirai: just wait till you see her hiden ninpou

As for the gameplay, I definitely thought it was stupid, repetitive garbage when I first played it. But that was BEFORE I beat Drag-on Dragoon aka "they weren't fucking kidding about the dragging on part" and revisiting this game after that, well, it's still repetitive but also, very fast and satisfactory. It's like eating KFC. You know it's bad yet somehow you can't stop yourself even though you still remember the last KFC diarrhea-fest. I would say if you like side-scrolling beat-em-ups, you're probably still not gonna like this. However, with a bit of patience, if you level up your characters and unlock all the moves, it gets almost kinda... fun. Crazy.

3 years ago, I probably had a life and better things to do

Score: 3 meh, what the hey, more boobies on Nintendo the better out of 5

Overall, I thought the story was so-so, the gameplay simplistic yet strangely addictive, and the boobies... one dimensional. However, the occasional panchira was not bad especially with the various costumes you can unlock. I have a few more images to unlock but it's a massive grind. I collected all the costumes and accessories and that's good enough for me.

26 hours and 10,708 enemies later... This game SUCKS guys. Fan service is SO LAME

I have to give credit though for an early 3DS game, it brought a lot of things to the table. I mean, what else was there to play on the 3DS in 2012, fucking nintendogs? There's nothing fundamentally flawed about the game except for the occasional floating enemy glitch so I would have to give this one a solid average score of 3.

Yeah yeah, breast physics and clothing destruction is so... 2012

Senran Kagura has obviously become a very successful franchise over the years. However, I find it interesting how well executed the cross-media marketing strategy was from the get-go. From the manga Senran Kagura Spark that started the franchise to the radio show, drama CD, and then the anime, the franchise had a lot of marketing muscle over the years. While this game and the rest of the franchise is localized, us Jhipsters can also enjoy the various side products such as the radio shows and drama CD.

揉んでいいのかな？LOL (Sorry non-jhipsters)
So yeah, sorry non-jhipsters, it's too bad but hey, at least you got all the games localized, right?

If you understand Japanese, this is actually a deep social commentary monologue
Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Fate/EXTRA（フェイト/エクストラ）

If you're a long-time reader of this blog, first of all, you have excellent taste and second, you may have noticed just the slightest hint of fondness for Imageepoch. It's not like I planned things that way. I only noticed much later that many of the games I really dug and enjoyed just happened to share the same name.

You may be gone but your spirit lives on... I hope. Sigh...

I was super bummed when the company disappeared (whatever happened to the CEO btw?) but thankfully other companies are picking up the slack. Fate/EXTELLA was just announced and even though it sounds like an action Musou clone (MEH), I'm still hopeful for a good game. At least it's a good excuse to revisit the first game.

Hopeful Fate/EXTELLA will be OK at least story-wise despite this action bullshit

When I first played Fate/EXTRA, my only exposure to the Fate franchise was the Fate/stay night anime and I thought it was boring as hell. Shirou was one of the most whiniest, annoying characters only a bit better than Shinji from Evangelion (aka "the crying masturbator") and Saber was like that super annoying straight edge girl in college who probably should've gone to a dry campus. So you won't hear me raving and drooling over this game just because of the franchise. In fact, I actually came in a bit skeptical but I was quickly pulled in by the very unorthodox premise.

Wha-? You calling ME the NPC?? THE NERVE! Sure, my avatar is super generic but I HAVE FEELINGS!

What I really liked about this game is that you're not some super special hero destined to save the world AGAIN. Ok ok, you start off with amnesia (oh that's a new one) but I loved how everybody just treats you like NPC trash (aka mob-chara if you ask some fucking weaboos). Everyone assumes you're going to die in every battle and it was awesome to see their shocked faces every time you come out alive. They're all like, "WTF?? You're still here??"

Gameplay-wise, the boss battles are definitely the highlight. The regular battles are very simple, pretty much rock-paper-scissor. The environments and regular enemies are super low-budget, very generic and often recycled. You level up very quickly at each new dungeon but there's a huge drop off so you can't grind really. This makes the later boss battles fairly challenging. Between just plain luck, trying to anticipate the boss's moves as well as timing your own special attacks, and making good use of your items, the boss battles are what makes this game fun. Yes, you actually need to use ITEMS in this game!

The music is smooth as hell... just like yours truly
You can choose between 3 servants and so far I've only played through the game with Saber. But man, she's SOOOO much cooler than Fate/stay night. She's deliciously decadent and is totally the opposite of the annoying, straight-edge, frigid Saber character from the anime. I am replaying the game with Caster and there's a couple boss battles and options that you can choose differently in a second playthrough so there is some replayability. A 3rd playthrough is stretching it a bit though.

UPDATE: Since it's been a while and I forgot a lot of the story, I went ahead and beat this game a second time with Caster and it was just as much fun as I remember. I even beat the secret hidden boss that only unlocks on the second playthrough and boy was that fight TOUGH! If you want to win as Caster, you pretty much have to cast a spell almost every turn as the boss can and WILL kill you with one devastating move. However, the battle won't end early enough for your MP to last so that's something you have to figure out. Anyways, great game and I'm sure I'll play it for a final 3rd time a few years later again.

Caster, you're the only waifu for me! Really!
Score: 3.5 Ha, paper beats rock! Wait, why is there a sword in my chest?? GAAAAAH! out of 5 (80 hours to beat twice with Saber and Caster)


I think Fate/EXTRA could have really used some more budget. Despite being a very story heavy TYPE-MOON game, there are far too few voiced lines. I actually had to read or something. (WTF is this "read" shit??) The environments are extremely limited and while the regular battles are kinda relaxing in a way, paper-rock-scissor isn't something to get excited about.

However, I really enjoyed the story despite all the reading and the boss battles were fun as hell. The music was good and overall, I had a great time with the game. I'm going to enjoy replaying it now it's been a few years and a bit more fresh.

Fate/EXTRA is available in English but not dubbed. Even though non-Jhipsters have to read ALL the text, with the large volume of unvoiced dialogue, I guess this time I can sympathize... a bit. LOL, you poor non-Jhipsters.

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

High School DxD: New Fight（ハイスクールD×D NEW FIGHT）

I was actually surprised to hear this game was going out of service back in July. Maybe boobs don't always sell after all. Welp, here we go again with the trophy deadline shit...

Surprisingly not enough to generate a profit apparently

I can't tell you anything about the anime except that it's the worst anime of all time. Did I watch it? No, of course not but I can tell just by looking at the Wikipedia page as a Puritan born again Christian rock gamergate supporter.

I would never play this filth, nuh uh, no way siree

Anyways, the game itself is a standard card battle F2P, boobie microtrans shitfest but as least the Platinum trophy wasn't too time consuming. OH RIGHT, I NEVER GOT THE PLATINUM BECAUSE OF A STUPID TROPHY GLITCH.

Exactly how I felt with the trophy glitch except you know not in a nurse costume

One of the easier trophies would not trigger for the life of me and I even had a back and forth with support about it. Unfortunately, they replied that a fix would require an update which they weren't going to do because DUH, the service was due for imminent shutdown.

You know how many games I bought from you fuckers?

Score: -1 Fuck it, let's set up a whole new score category for this atrocity out of 5

More screenshots to reflect on the folly of your ways.

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Net High（ネットハイ）

Net High is a game where I have so much to talk about I honestly don't know where to even begin. This game is truly a product of our time, an artifact that would have made absolutely no sense only a few years ago and is a perfect encapsulation of our society at THIS VERY MOMENT.

This game has it all including shameless self-plugs!

I'm sure kids of the future will look back on the kids today watching other people play games on twitch, their snapchat shenanigans, and whatever else they're doing nowadays and look bemused and confused with their typical smug "I can't believe this is what old people used to do!" asshole attitudes. Finally, today's kids can get a taste of their own medicine similar to how us old fogeys feel now with these stupid kids react videos to rotary telephones, Reaganomics, the holocaust or whatever the fuck they're doing on the youtubes nowadays. I'm sure the future kids can have a good laugh at these old kids watching videos on a OMG physical screen instead of some sexy AI avatar projection gently serving up their entertainment straight to their brain cells. Umm, what was I talking about again? Oh yeah! Net High is an extremely unique and funny game.

In the sequel, it'll record you playing a character watching a livestream of the game which your friends can then watch.

Net High is basically Ace Attorney but instead of a courtroom, you have Tweeeter, a social network not unlike Twitter and the netizens as the jury (Well AA is strictly bench rulings but whatever). You as the main character must steal Tweeeter followers from the riaju elite (if you don't know what a riaju is well, ggrks). Each battle is live-streamed from Niyo-niyo douga with the winner decided by the number of thumbs up from the viewer. Of course, you can thumbs up yourself. OF COURSE. AS MANY TIMES AS YOU WANT! SPAM AWAY!!

This is how public discourse has evolved over the centuries? Sorry Socrates...

As I said, if you're not all up on Japanese internet culture in 2015, you may get a bit lost with the numerous parodies of popular websites, apps, games, etc.. I wouldn't even call it references at this point. The game's setting is basically a dystopian result of the constant stream of meaningless information and distraction we are bombarded with via our smartphones nowadays. It's a reflection of today's modern smartphone culture and what a sad, sad world it is (don't even get me started on that pokem** Go shit).

Kankore parody but with tanks called Pankore? GENIUS! And this was BEFORE Girls und panzer exploded in popularity.

Not only did I love the premise of the game, the voice acting and cast was superb as well. Every voice actor was excellent except for one painful exception which was I think unavoidable given the situation which I can't talk about cause spoilers. In particular, I just loved listening to the voices of Shiru and MC.

I totally love this game for the voice acting. NO REALLY!!

The art, animation, and music were great as well. If the artstyle reminds you of Gurren Lagann and Kill la kill, you're not the only one. The illustrator is a freelance who has some really nice fan art on his tumblr page.

This guy's got some mad skills

My only real gripe was that the battles were painfully easy. While it makes a good effort of well, shamelessly ripping off AA, complete with frequent remarks about the protagonist's spiky hair, which gossip to use to attack your opponent was always painfully obvious. The investigation sections were anything but, requiring not much more than picking dialogue options. But at least Net High has petting mini-games!

In addition, there's a real pain-in-the-ass trophy that requires you to play for 3 hours a day for a week consecutively. I don't like to be rushed so having to keep the game on until I could play 3 hours for the day was a big bummer especially given that the game is not much longer than the 21 hours it takes for the trophy. Not to mention that one time it crashed after 2 hours... ARGH!!

I thought the artstyle, animation, and music were all good and-WHOA BOOBS!
Overall, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the game and loved it to bits really. I was simultaneously amused but also slightly frightened by how much of the real world is reflected in the game. What with all the gamerg*** crap, flaming, and all the ugly stuff going on nowadays with getting people fired from their jobs, doxing, death threats, and swatting. While the "game" aspect of Net High was certainly its weakest point, I still had fun with it and was thoroughly entertained during every minute of the story (despite some large plot holes). And at the end of the day, having fun is all that matters to me.

I highly recommend this game for all Jhipsters and while there is no localization yet, the fact the trophies are translated to English means non-Jhipsters may eventually be able to check out this neat title, hopefully before all the references get outdated and are no longer relevant. Here's hoping they come through with the sequel they teased at the end!

Score: 4 whereupon I spent hours pondering the effects of the internet on our society and cultur- OH MORE BOOBS! out of 5. (32 hours for platinum)

BYE BYE!!

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely